


American Appetites

by MegumitheGreat



Series: Shameless Mitchentine what-ifs, inserts, and fixes [10]
Category: The Walking Dead (Telltale Video Game)
Genre: Attempt at Suspense, Cannibalism, F/M, Family, Home surgery, Infection, Long One Shot, One Shot, Pining, Self-Indulgent, Walkers (Walking Dead), one shot series, scene insert
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-07
Updated: 2019-06-07
Packaged: 2020-04-12 07:53:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19127764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MegumitheGreat/pseuds/MegumitheGreat
Summary: When one of the fish traps is found broken beyond repair, Clementine and Mitch go out to investigate.





	American Appetites

**Author's Note:**

> STRONG PROFANITY
> 
> This...may be...my most ambitious one shot for this pair yet. It's not as romantic as the others, but I've spent the whole week thinking about this idea. The title is totally a reference to Red Dead Redemption's "American Appetites" side quest, and I personally love that quest and considering that Season 4 parallels Season 1...I'm a little upset that there wasn't anything about cannibalism, but I also suppose that trying to copy verbatim is a bad idea. Still would have been an interesting thing to see years after Clementine's experience at the St. John's Dairy Farm. That said, this one shot IS an indirect sequel to Quality Time (Part 2), so I'd recommend reading that if you feel so inclined to know where the OCs are coming from.

Aasim and Omar had returned from the river with a broken fish trap. Violet sighed. Willy had worked hard to build the traps for them, and to find that one had been broken beyond repair was disheartening. Even if fish were scarce these days, it meant that they would have to work harder and expend more energy. On the bright side, it meant that the fish had a chance of bouncing back from being hunted too much.

The broken trap was very suspicious. Violet examined it over and over, calling Clementine into the office to examine it as well as Mitch and Willy, both of who had planned it and made it a reality. Clementine was just as disappointed as everyone else, but she gleaned two things: it wasn’t done by Abel or the other raiders, and they weren’t alone in the woods; there was someone in addition to them and the raiders and James and his walkers.

Mitch tinkered with the trap with the hope that he could maybe fix it, but Willy didn’t seem as optimistic. “It’s broken,” the twelve-year-old sighed. “I can make a new one, but it’ll take some time.”

“Yeah, some of these parts can’t even be replaced,” Mitch added. He pulled a piece out and shifted another over only for it to fall apart in his hands. “Well, shit.”

“We’re fucked if we have another problem to worry about,” Violet grumbled. “We can’t afford to not focus on the raiders’ attack…”

“And we can’t ignore this,” Clementine told her. She looked over at Mitch. He was one of their best fighters, and if there were any more traps that had been sabotaged, maybe he could beat down the person or animal who had done it. “Let’s go check it out.”

“Clem,” Violet started until Mitch flashed her a devious look. “Mitch.”

“If someone fucked our traps, let’s go pay them back,” Mitch said with a sly smirk. He stared at Violet expectantly. “Let’s go fuck shit up.”

Violet crossed her arms, hunching over in thought. She didn’t want to let them go. It was dangerous. But then, Marlon didn’t let anyone go anywhere—not even their own greenhouse—because it was too dangerous. She didn’t want to be like him, yet she didn’t want to risk their lives.

“If you’re going, then I’m coming, too!” Willy pouted.

“And AJ will come along with us,” Clementine added. “It’ll be fine.”

Violet frowned at the idea of losing her, their strategist, in some harebrained scheme to starve the kids out of the school. There was no other way around it, though. She reluctantly agreed to let them go with the addition of their kids. Willy, and later on AJ, were excited to get out and participate in the mystery of the broken trap. Clementine reminded them when they came to the school gate that they weren’t going out to have fun.

The broken trap was a major issue, and she had a bad feeling about whoever was lurking out there. The river was just on the edge of the safe zone that had been established long before she arrived. She knew that Marlon was progressively shrinking the places they could go, bottlenecking the school almost as a conveyor belt into the raiders’ ranks.

Her mind wandered, drifting to her new family and how they would have felt had Marlon been allowed to continue his trades. She glanced at Mitch. Big, tough, explosive Mitch. He and Willy surely would have suffered. Everyone would have. No amount of attitude would have saved them from Lilly’s wrath; she remembered how compulsive and impulsive she was. She killed friends simply for not agreeing with her ways. Willy would have probably survived, but she didn’t want to think about Mitch being put down by her.

“Clem,” Mitch suddenly said. Or perhaps not so suddenly because he had been saying her name over and over again to get her attention and bring her back to reality. “You alright? You just spaced out. Was weird.”

“Yeah. I’m fine,” Clementine replied. “I just…I was just thinking about something.”

Willy and AJ gave her knowing looks, but she swore it was only about the broken trap. Mitch didn’t notice anything. She led the boys out of the courtyard, Violet and Louis watching them leave while Ruby and Aasim locked the gate behind them.

Clementine, Mitch, Willy, and AJ walked deep into the woods as they followed the well-trodden path to the river. No one said anything in case there was someone or something watching them. All eyes were forward. Clementine was armed with her knife, AJ had his pistol, and Mitch and Willy both had their bows and a makeshift quiver of arrows the former had made in his spare time. They stepped carefully. Not a single twig was snapped under their footfalls. And they came to the river.

“Well, we’re here,” Clementine stated. Immediately they all relaxed a little. She asked Mitch and Willy to check the other traps while she and AJ investigated the bank for evidence of uninvited guests. When neither duo had found anything, they reconvened in front of the old shack. “I’ll take it that you didn’t see anything.”

“Nah, the other couple of traps are a little beaten up, but nothing as bad as the one Aasim found,” Willy said.

“Someone deliberately broke that one, but that’s all they did,” Mitch added. “What about you?”

“No footprints,” AJ said.

“At least no human or walker ones,” Clementine tacked on. “I’m wondering if it would have been a better idea to bring Rosie along. There could be a scent she could pick up.”

“Maybe,” Mitch replied. He looked across the river at the woods that continued farther. “Would it be worth checking over there?”

“That’s not in the safe zone,” Willy told him.

“I know, bud, but…”

“But that’s where bad guys would hide, right?” AJ asked.

“Mitch and AJ do have a point,” Clementine admitted.

She knew that it was exponentially more dangerous the farther they got from the school, but she—and Mitch—felt like they needed to at least verify that no one was stalking them. AJ was an incredibly great shot, and Willy wasn’t too shabby himself. Since they felt better staying on the safer side of the river, she asked that they kept watch there. AJ wanted to go with her, but she wanted him to help Willy in case they attacked them. If the twelve-year-old got hurt, Mitch would never forgive them or himself. Mitch promised AJ that he would make sure Clementine was okay, and Clementine made the same promise about him to Willy. The two of them then set off deeper into the woods.

Crossing the river and heading into the forest, they found footprints with the distinct marking of boots around. It wasn’t heading into the direction of James’s camp, so it couldn’t have been him. These were purposeful, crisscrossing as if to give the impression that whoever had been there was simply confused. Mitch and Clementine exchanged looks. The footprints stopped there.

“What the fuck is this…?” Mitch said low but not quite in a whisper.

“Someone was staking out here,” Clementine theorized. She tried to follow if there was a hidden path, Mitch covering her from behind just in case it was a trap. “There are at least three pairs of feet.”

“Then three assholes that fucked up our shit.”

“Looks like it.”

Clementine took note of a path that had been somewhat cut through the bushes. And in a tiny clearing, there was a single white object. There was nothing on it; no ants or maggots or flesh. There were shallow grooves where muscle had been attached at some point, but it was completely clean. Too clean for it to have been simply an animal carcass picked apart by vultures. On top of that, it was rather long. The strategist took a step towards it when Mitch grabbed her arm.

“You’re just going to walk up to it?” he asked her, unnerved by this discovery.

“If it’s what I think it is…” she started. Her thoughts were pulled by the object.

“It’s a bone.”

“That’s not what I mean…what _kind_ of bone?”

Clementine’s formal knowledge of the human body didn’t extend past whatever she had learned in elementary school, but she had seen and fought enough walkers to know that it was a human bone. And it was long, longer than any other bone. She walked up to it.

“It’s…it looks like a thigh bone,” she said as she tried hard to identify it. “Why is this here?”

Mitch followed behind her, but as soon as he joined her side to get a look at the femur, something under them snapped loudly like firecrackers. He grabbed her and held her tightly in his arms as they plummeted down into a hole that was about ten feet deep. Clementine was frozen in place, both shocked by the fall and how close Mitch was holding her to keep her from getting hurt. Mitch groaned in pain, but he was otherwise okay save for a few scratches.

“Mitch, are you okay?!” Clementine worried aloud and far more panicked than she would have liked to let on.

“I’m fine,” he told her as he let her go and pushed himself to sit up. “You?”

“I’m fine, too.”

“Fuckers made a pitfall—just how long were they around?”

“Long enough to dig this hole.”

“Obviously.” Then his stomach dropped. “Willy! AJ!”

“Shit!” Clementine hissed. Both of them tried to climb the sides of the hole only to loosen the dirt and pile some on them. A handful had fallen into their faces, and Clementine ordered that they stopped before it caved in on them. “Give me a boost,” she said, this time a little calmer with the intention of not alarming Mitch of the worst-case scenario.

Mitch locked his fingers together to give her a foothold, and as she stepped onto his callused hands, he lifted her about a foot higher so she could balance on his shoulder and pivot. While he was worried about the kids, he was unsure how she would feel about him lifting her by her rear and legs. He braced her legs, and she stood on his shoulders. She was still just shy a few inches.

“Fucking hell…!” Clementine grumbled.

“Hang on,” Mitch said. He still had a hold of her legs as he leaned against the wall of the hole and stood on the tips of his toes while lifting her as much as he could by her calves. “You good?”

Clementine was able to grab the edge of the hole, but naturally, the dirt crumbled away. Had they been in a less dire situation, she would have laughed and teased Mitch by throwing the dirt on him. But that was the best she could manage. If she could at least claw something of a sloping landing to the surface, she could help him up. And she worked as fast as her arms could move despite Mitch getting tired no matter how much he tried to push through it. He was annoyed by the piles and piles of dirt falling on his head and down his back, but there were more important things to be concerned about.

“Finally!” Clementine said as she had dug a slope. She climbed up onto it then offered a hand to Mitch. “Grab on.”

Mitch wiggled in the pile of dirt to loosen it around him before he took her hand. On the count of three, she pulled him up while he dug his foot into the wall. While he took care not to make his foothold collapse, his weight being something far more than what Clementine had expected, she nearly fell back into the hole.

Once the two were on the slope, he glanced at her with reddened cheeks. “Thanks,” he mumbled. Without a word, Clementine threw her arms around his neck for a quick moment. “C-Clem…!”

“I’m just glad we’re both okay,” she said in an attempt to play it off. She let go of him. “We have to get back to AJ and Willy!”

The two ran together back to the river, the sun starting to set on the land. If they weren’t careful, walkers would be coming out as well as raiders. But when they came to the river, when they crossed the river, they found the spot that Willy and AJ had been waiting devoid of them. Instead, a splotch of crimson blood stained the ground.

“Oh, fuck no…!” Mitch hyperventilated. “Willy! Willy, come out! _Willy!_ ”

“AJ! _AJ, where are you?!_ ” Clementine screamed.

Clementine and Mitch looked in every direction, the fear of losing two of their own settling into the pits of their stomachs and making them sick.

“Clementine? Mitch?” Aasim gasped. He and Louis had come out from the school grounds armed with a bow and Chairles; Rosie had helped guide them through the growing darkness. “Thank God, you guys are alive.”

“You hadn’t come back in hours; Violet sent us to find you,” Louis explained. “The fuck? Is that blood?”

“AJ and Willy are missing!” Clementine told them, the breath escaping from her with every word. “Mitch and I…we found a human bone…and—and then we fell into a trap!”

“When we came back, they were gone!” Mitch finished, more distressed than his partner.

“Shit!” Louis sympathized.

“Let’s get back to school,” Aasim told them. “Once we tell Violet—”

Mitch shook his head vigorously. He refused to go back without Willy, and Clementine was even more adamant about going to find them. She remembered the last time that AJ was taken from her, and she had vowed to never let it happen again.

“We’re going out to find them,” she told them, finality in her voice as clear as the setting sun.

“Clem, no, that’s suicide?” Louis tried to dissuade her.

“Fuck that, I’m not leaving AJ out here!”

“And fuck you if you think I’m going to abandon Willy. You all might be prepared to leave him, but they’re kids!” Though Mitch had jumped to the conclusion, Louis assured him that he didn’t mean to abandon them.

Aasim got between Mitch and Louis to mediate. He could see that they were intent on searching, and while he didn’t want them to stay out, he couldn’t tell them not to worry. He commanded Rosie to join them, which granted Clementine a little reprieve. Rosie’s sharp nose could help them find their boys.

“We’ll…tell Violet what happened,” Aasim told them. “She won’t like it, but I’d rather not have you two tear me apart because we wouldn’t let you go.”

“Thanks, Aasim,” Clementine sighed once she realized that she had been too harsh. “Thanks for bringing Rosie.” She turned to the fearsome dog and pointed at the blood on the ground. “Think you can find out who this is?”

Rosie barked, did as she was told to do, and faced the direction that the smell trailed off into. After parting ways with Aasim and Louis, Clementine and Mitch followed Rosie on the scent trail left behind in the blood. They ran fast but as quiet as possible so that they didn’t alert anyone and anything that they were there in the woods.

Nighttime was quiet and peaceful when walkers and raiders weren’t attacking. With Rosie guiding them to where Willy and AJ had to be, Clementine couldn’t help but think how nice it would have been if things were normal. She and her boy could stroll around in the woods for evening patrol. She and Mitch could admire the starry skies above together. Of course, he would have surely talked about blowing up the moon or something and ruin what could possibly be a romantic moment, but she admitted to herself that it would be interesting.

She felt like they understood each other; she had never seen him look so distressed. It was expected, though. Willy was to him as AJ was to her. That was all she needed to know to see that he genuinely cared for and loved him. Even the others in their ragtag family of misfits had a hard time seeing past his abrasive front, and Mitch never liked to let on that he worried for them.

Rosie came to a stop deep in the woods now. She sniffed the ground in search of the scent trail, and both Clementine and Mitch took this time to catch their breath. There was no telling how much farther they had to go.

“Mitch,” Clementine uttered while Rosie looked for their hint. Mitch turned to her, for a brief second looking pale and sick to his stomach before regaining himself and appearing unbothered by Willy’s disappearance. “I…”

“What?” he asked her coldly, and he seemed to wince at his own harshness. “Sorry…I’m just worried about Willy. AJ’s missing, too. I’m not the only one scared for them.”

“It’s okay. I just wanted to say that we’ll get them back.”

“We better. I…I don’t know what I’ll do if we don’t.”

Clementine looked over at Rosie, who sat down with a long face. “Oh no, she can’t find it.”

Mitch held himself back from cursing Rosie when it wasn’t her fault. He suggested that if someone had been injured, there had to be another clue for them. It was dark, however, and looking for something like blood in dirt and dead leaves was as easy as—in Mitch’s own analogy—clipping the red wire of a time bomb in a locked closet…with a blindfold. Clementine had to question his exaggeration, but she understood the sentiment. It was only pessimism talking.

“We’ve still got to try,” Clementine said. Mitch agreed with her.

The two teenagers began to comb the area for any signs that whoever had been at least injured had gone through the area. But instead of finding blood, Clementine found something else that shook her with fear.

In the bushes, a shoe about AJ’s size had been caught on the tiny branches. She pulled the shoe from it, and she swallowed the panic that welled up in her chest. She brought it to Mitch and Rosie, hands trembling even though she tried her best to hide her fear.

Mitch took her hand and squeezed it. AJ had to be alright. He wanted both of the kids to be alive and well. Rosie smelled the shoe, and the scent had been rediscovered. She guided them once again a few more miles into the forest to a small cave before stopping and growling at something shining on the ground.

Clementine squinted to see what it was—a silver cable that was partially covered with dirt. Mitch saw it as well. He followed the cable with his eyes over a high tree branch which was connected to a stick standing straight up in the ground. It was just barely noticeable.

“That’s a snare trap,” he whispered.

“Snare? For animals?” Clementine whispered back.

“Could be, but I don’t think so.” He shushed Rosie. “I’m going to trigger it.”

“What? No!”

Clementine gripped his arm. A snare so close to the cave mouth was suspicious, and she couldn’t help but feel there was some sort of alarm system connected to it.

The cave mouth was enshrouded in shadow, but there was a silhouette of a man at the entrance. He was watching the snare for a moment then turned and headed back into the cave itself. He returned a couple minutes later with a torch. He made his way to the snare, fiddled with it, then left again. This time, he didn’t come back.

Clementine and Mitch were curious what he did to the snare, the latter once again willing to go and trigger it to make getting past it easier. Clementine still refused.

“I’m not letting you get captured for something so stupid,” she sternly said. “We need to stay together.”

“Okay, genius. What do you think we should do then?” Mitch growled at her. “We’re wasting time.”

Rosie whined before nosing a rock the size of a baseball to them. Clementine raised an eyebrow. She took it in her hand, throwing it up into the air and catching it. It was heavy like a baseball as she had hoped. Then she handed it to Mitch, who pouted at first then realized that he didn’t have to go out. He had a decent arm for underhand throws, and with Clementine behind him and Rosie staying back until she was ordered to come along, they inched up to a spot hidden in the trees just a couple feet from the trap’s trigger. They crouched down to stay covered in case the man with the torch came back.

Clementine rested her hand on Mitch’s back to support her body as she lowered herself into her perch; Mitch turned his head from her so she couldn’t see—even in the moonlight—that he had gotten a little flustered.

“Dammit, focus,” he mouthed off to the side.

“Think you can hit it from here?” she asked him.

“Doesn’t look too hard. Trying to keep it low might not work.”

“Do what you have to.”

Mitch nodded, the look of determination striking a hopeful spark in Clementine. He stood up, tossed the rock onto the trigger, and waited to see what would happen. Suddenly, something whizzed through the air. The next minute he found an arrow in his shoulder.

“Fuck…!” Mitch cursed.

A series of clanking sounds resonated all the way back into the cave, and two men and a woman came out. The trap had been sprung, and they were armed with crossbows and guns.

“Oh shit!” Clementine whispered. “Rosie, run!”

Immediately and obediently, the dog ran back into the forest. When she turned back to look at the three figures, she found the two men making their way to the trap then to where they were.

“Don’t move!” one of the men ordered. His voice sounded familiar to the teenagers. “Move and I _will_ shoot. Neither of us want that.”

“Fucking shit,” Mitch growled. He slowly moved his hand to the arrow only to stop when the man that had warned them not to move was upon them. “You…”

“You’re that man…we saw at the river…” Clementine realized.

“Oh, the young couple,” the man said. “Sheryl! Guess who I just found!”

While the man was calling to the woman named Sheryl, Mitch tore the arrow from his shoulder, prompting him to take aim with his pistol at them. He was aiming at their heads—one at a time—knowing it would take less than a second to kill both of them.

“We won’t try anything…” Clementine cautiously said. “He was just getting the arrow out…”

“Shut the fuck up,” the man said. “Monk, hurry up, man! I ain’t got all night!” He took aim at Clementine specifically. “So, your boyfriend thought it was okay to take that arrow out, huh? How’s about I plug a bullet in you then? Can’t take a bullet out if you’re dead.”

It all happened in a blink of an eye. The man pulled the trigger, and something clouded Clementine’s eyes. Mitch let out a yelp, and weight fell on her. She was wrapped in his arms.

“Mitch!” Clementine gasped. “He didn’t do anything, you fucking asshole!”

“Fuck if I’m going to let you kill her,” Mitch spat through the excruciating pain. He had been shot in the back. It wasn’t fatal, yet the shot had made him dizzy with agony.

Monk approached them with rope, his crossbow strapped to his back. He pulled Mitch off of Clementine, tying his hands and feet roughly while the other man bound Clementine in a tight hogtie.

“Shit, Rodney, you and Sheryl got spooked by these kids?” Monk asked.

“Are you fucking dumb? We had to pretend so we could spy on them. Don’t matter anyway. We got us some good shit.”

Monk and Rodney carried Mitch and Clementine back to the cave where Sheryl quickly tended to the fresh wound in Mitch’s back. The woman had an EMT’s medical kit, to which Clementine was both amazed and frightened that she had it. Needles, gauze, alcohol swabs—she had everything.

“Get your fucking hands off me,” Mitch snarled at her. Squirming and rolling from side to side to make it hard for Sheryl to extract the bullet from his back, he cursed her for being a part of all this madness. “Don’t touch me!” he yelled at her again as she got a hold of him and injected a numbing agent near the wound after managing to lift his jacket and shirt.

“Shhh, it’s okay, it’s okay,” she shushed him. He still struggled against her.

Monk stepped up this time, putting his crossbow to his head. Rodney kept his grip on the ropes holding Clementine.

“You two keep fighting, and you won’t even get to see your boys again,” he threatened. “They both yours, ain’t they?”

“Where the fuck is Willy?!” Mitch snarled.

“Shit, Sheryl, you shouldn’t have used the anesthetic,” Monk sighed.

“We want to keep this one as prime as we can,” Sheryl replied. “If he’s damaged, he won’t keep well.”

“Rodney already fucking shot him!”

Clementine listened to them calmly, quietly. She had heard this way of speaking before. She startled a little when Rodney searched her and seized her knife. He tossed it over to Monk, who examined it with a smirk. Sheryl glared at him as she went at Mitch’s back with a scalpel and tissues to catch his blood. The bomb enthusiast still fought against her, but once she started cutting into him, he went rigid. The site of the bullet wound was numb, but it was only a small radius. Everything else was still sensitive and even tender. Her mouth was watering, a telltale sign that they had to be very careful.

Monk held the knife to the small of his back so that the tip poked him but didn’t break skin. Mitch knew better than to move now, and while Sheryl had numbed him, he still felt her gloved hands digging deeper into his wound looking for the bullet. He whined, the discomfort of this stranger doing a home surgery on him making him more nervous than the knife on his back. The tissues were drenched in his blood.

It was then that Clementine remembered the bloodstain by the river. She glanced at Sheryl, then Monk, then Rodney, then back to Sheryl. The woman’s body was turned so that her left side was obscured to her. Every once in a while, she caught a glimpse of some dingy bits of gauze with dried blood. She had been shot—presumably by AJ. She must have removed the bullet herself.

“God, what is taking so long?” Monk grumbled.

“Relax, this is a delicate procedure,” Sheryl scolded the large man.

Clementine wanted to hold onto Mitch and tell him that he was okay, especially as he shut his eyes tightly with the prodding and cutting going deeper until he was sure she was going to cut to the other side.

“Rodney, can you please take me to him?” she asked him, erasing all hostility from her voice.

“Why?” Rodney spat back.

“I just want to sit next to him. He’s scared, right? That’s not a good thing, right?” She waited. Monk and Rodney exchanged looks. The former nodded to let her sit next to him, and instead she lay down so that she could see into his eyes. “Mitch?” Clementine softly said. The usually rough and tough boy opened his eyes, finding comfort in her presence and still fearing whatever it was that Sheryl was doing to find the bullet. “You’re okay. They won’t hurt you. Just focus on me.”

Sheryl tapped something foreign in Mitch’s back. She replaced the scalpel into the EMT kit and got a pair of forceps. She went back in.

“This feels weird…” Mitch whined again.

“It’s fine, just look at me. Um, oh, remember when AJ and I first met you? AJ thought you were so cool, and Willy thought he was so funny.” Clementine offered him a small smile.  
“C-Clem…I…”

“I got it,” Sheryl suddenly said. She pulled the bullet out from the hole. “So that’s good. Now I just have to stitch him up.”

“It’s not going to matter, just shove some cotton into it and put a bandage over it,” Monk griped. Without even waiting for Sheryl to attempt to dress the wound, he jerked Mitch up to stand while Rodney did the same to Clementine.

The two walked them down the tunnels to a small cage where AJ and Willy were sleeping. AJ’s shoe was missing, and Clementine was at least glad to have retrieved it so he could have a pair. Rodney aimed his pistol at them while Monk untied Clementine first. He shoved her into the cage, waking up the little boys who cowered in fear of them until AJ realized that his caretaker was there in front of him.

“Clem!” he happily said.

Once Clementine was in the cage, Monk untied Mitch. Rodney warned him again that he would shoot if he tried to fight back. Unable to oppose, the boy just did as he was told. Willy hugged him, wiping his nose on his arm when he started to tear up.

“Y’all are going to stay in there for a few hours. Come breakfast, we’ll make a decision,” Rodney said. He and Monk returned to Sheryl.

The anesthetic was wearing off, bringing Mitch to his knees which frightened Willy. Clementine helped him down, listening carefully in case either one of the men was coming back to check on them.

“What the fuck…was that about…?” Mitch asked through gritted teeth.

“Well, if it wasn’t obvious, they’re cannibals,” Clementine said matter-of-factly. She crossed her arms. “We don’t have much time until morning.”

“What happens in the morning?” Willy asked.

“There’s no getting around it. They’re going to eat one of us.”

“W-What does that mean?” AJ asked while trying not to show his fear.

“Just what it means. If we don’t get out of here quick, they’re going to take one of us out and cook us up for breakfast. We were so caught up with the raiders, I completely forgot that cannibals existed. Especially after all these years…”

Clementine remembered the St. John’s brothers that had captured and eaten the legs of an acquaintance that Lee had saved when they had just started out. Unlike them, the ones that had them now weren’t so nice. They didn’t try to woo them or pretend to be a normal set of people. They were desperate and ready to eat them.

She turned to the boys. “More importantly, are you two okay?” she asked.

“We’re okay,” AJ confirmed. He made a gun with his fingers. “I shot the blonde lady. Bang.”

“I saw, but…they took your gun. And my knife. And the bows and arrows.”

“But we can get them back!” Willy professed. “Right, Mitch?” He turned around to his brother-figure. “Mitch!”

“Stay with us, got it?” Clementine said.

“Try…Trying…” Mitch panted. HE was having a hard time staying conscious, and no one knew if it was because he was sleepy or sick.

Clementine had to wonder if the wound was already infected. It was too soon, but then there was the possibility that the scalpel and forceps had been dirty, or the grime on his skin had had a part in it, or the bullet itself was dirty. She knelt down to him with Willy and AJ beside her, placing her hand on his forehead and cheeks.

“I’m fine, Clem…just figure out how to get out of here.”

“I can’t have you dying on me,” she responded. She asked that Willy keep an eye on him.

AJ and Clementine now were in charge of finding a way out. She thought back to when the St. John’s brothers had trapped her and her friends in the shed at the dairy farm. It was a room with solid walls and no windows. Now they were in a cage in a cave. A dark cave. Clementine examined the doors of the cage and the lock that held them prisoner. She didn’t have a crowbar nor any lockpicks. She couldn’t break the lock.

The only idea she could think of was to get Rodney, Monk, or Sheryl to open the cage for them and take them down. The fact that Mitch was sick now—could that have been a blessing in disguise? She hated it. Returning to him, he looked bad. It hurt him to move.

“I know you don’t feel well,” Clementine started. Mitch looked at her, a frown on his face because he didn’t want her looking at him like that.

“Don’t treat me…like a handicap now…” he huffed.

“That’s not it. I need you to pretend like you’re going to die.”

“What?”

“The only way we’re getting out is if Sheryl comes here. They don’t want tainted meat.”

“What about Rodney and Monk?”

Clementine thought about them. The trap that the had set outside wasn’t a simple one. More than likely they needed two people to set it—one to hold the trap in reset while the other took the mechanism back to the beginning. Snares and the like were extremely dangerous for amateurs to set up alone, further giving her confidence that Sheryl would be the only one in the cave for now.

“And what if they think…I’m a walker…?” Mitch asked. Suddenly his eyes grew wide. “Clem, if they think I’m a walker…!”

“Don’t act like a walker then!”

“I got it,” Willy said. He asked Clementine and AJ to get on Mitch’s other side before working himself up to cry. He apologized quickly to his mentor before punching him in the wound.

“Fuck, Willy!” Mitch gasped. He groaned and moaned and writhed where he was.

In as loud a voice as he could, Willy yelled out, “Mitch! Oh, God, someone help! Mitch!”

As expected, Sheryl was the only one to run to their cage. She found his face wet with tears and his hand covered in blood. He bawled and cried to Sheryl that Mitch was deathly ill and had coughed up the blood on his hand. Clementine attested to it. Rodney and Monk had left the key with her if an event like this were to happen. AJ saw that she had a hunting knife sheathed on her leg. He waited.

“The meat’s tainted…! Oh, God, why? He was the buck! He had more meat than any one of you!” Sheryl panicked. She gripped her matted blonde hair before scrambling to open the cage with the key to it. And once she did and she came in to check Mitch for a way to stop the infection, the four of them waited.

There was no plan. There were only instincts and Clementine’s wit. Sheryl got close to examine Mitch. It all happened in a flash.

With a heavy hand, Mitch punched Sheryl to the side while Willy snatched the key from her belt. AJ took the hunting knife. Clementine held the door open for the younger boys while Mitch kept waling on her to keep her from getting up. She grabbed the knife from AJ, pulled Mitch off of Sheryl, then stabbed her in the throat. Without a moment to waste, she helped Mitch out and rejoined the boys. Willy slammed the cage door shut and locked it. Sheryl was going to turn into a walker soon enough, and it was going to be a nasty surprise for Rodney and Monk. They had to move fast.

“I can’t believe that worked,” Mitch said, trying to straighten up so he didn’t overwhelm Clementine with his weight. “But you could have warned me, Willy.”

“If I did, it wouldn’t have been convincing,” Willy laughed.

“When we get home, I’m giving you a noogie to end all noogies.”

“We’re not home yet,” Clementine said. She glanced at Sheryl’s now-drained corpse. “Willy, do you think you can grab that EMT kit she was using?”

“I don’t see why not.”

“Great. Rodney has AJ’s gun, so we’ll need that back, too.”

“The fuck?” Monk’s voice came. “Sheryl, where are you?! Rodney needs your medical expertise. Dumbass got his hand caught in the snare! Sheryl!”

Mitch was getting used to the pain, and even though he felt malaise and feverish, he felt better knowing that they had a higher chance of getting home. Clementine kept the knife on her; AJ always had his spare shiv, and the bows that they had lost were sitting right next to the medical kit, which was where Monk was. They quietly lingered by the opening of the tunnel, watching the man in the silver spotlight of the moon.

“Fucker’s in the way…” Mitch whispered before stifling a groan. He stepped against the tunnel wall, doubling over in pain that seemed to sudden increased in intensity. “Ugh…”

“Mitch, hang in there,” Willy pleaded.

“Clem’s going to be sad if you die,” AJ told him. Clementine blushed, but thanks to the darkness, no one saw it. She just bopped him on the head.

“Just wait here,” she said. “I’m going to take care of him.” She patted Mitch’s head then started to the opening. Mitch grabbed her hand.

“Being reckless…isn’t your job…” he said between breaths.

“It isn’t, but you’re in no shape to do it. Besides, you’re not the only good fighter here.”

She smiled at him, knife in hand. Monk had his crossbow. Extreme caution was necessary so that Willy and AJ weren’t burdened with two injured teenagers. She stepped out into the open. Naturally, Monk was very confused why she was outside of the cage until he realized that Sheryl wasn’t coming back from wherever she went.

“What the fuck did you do?” he growled at her.

“We escaped,” Clementine said. “Pretty sure your medic is a walker by now. I’m sorry that I had to kill her, but she endangered my family.”

Monk raised his crossbow, yet he didn’t shoot. He just aimed at her, little sobs escaping from him. He was broken about Sheryl’s death, or was he? Clementine wasn’t going to wait to figure it out. She ran up to him in his moment of weakness. She kicked his leg, staggering him, then stabbing his hand holding the handle of the crossbow. When he let go of it, it felt to the ground, firing a bolt into her hip. It hurt like fucking hell, but she couldn’t afford to leave herself open.

Monk grabbed her wrist with his other hand, twisting her around. She let out a cry and whimper, but she stepped back onto his foot. Stomping it as hard as she could, Monk let her go. He wrenched the knife from his hand.

AJ and Willy peeked from around the corner. Clementine had lost her knife, and they could only think of trying to help her in some way. Mitch steeled himself. He pushed himself up against the wall.

“We’ve got to do something,” he said.

“No, she said we just need to get to the E-M-T kit,” AJ said. He looked on at Clementine fighting Monk for the knife. “Mitch, can you get to the crossbow?”

“Shouldn’t be too hard.”

“Cool. Willy and me can run past them and get the kit and weapons.”

Monk hit the bolt sticking out of Clementine’s abdomen, eliciting a sharp cry from her that alerted Rodney outside. While he couldn’t move to find out what was going on, he started making a bunch of noise that was starting to attract walkers.

Next, Monk pushed her on her back, dropping on her with the intention to stab her in the head. He was going to make sure he ate, even if it meant eating the doe before her fawns. Clementine pushed back on his arms with all her strength, but the searing pain in her hip from having a bolt sink into it distracted her.

AJ and Willy ran past them, momentarily catching Monk off-guard and allowing Clementine to push him off. He still had her knife, but at least now she could lunge at him and wrestle for it. Monk was a big guy and built strong. Even wrestling for it would put her in danger of being crushed under him.

Mitch made his way to the crossbow off to the side, loading a bolt as fast as he could then taking aim. Clementine stretched for the knife that her opponent kept out of her reach. Monk flipped her off of him. He pinned her down with one hand then hovered the knife over her head with the other.

“You’re mine now, little doe,” Monk laughed at her. “Sheryl might be dead, but that just means one less mouth to feed. Going to cook those babies up tonight, and the buck’s going to make a nice three-course meal.”

“Get the fuck off!” Clementine screamed at him. She kicked him repeatedly, but he simply gripped the bolt and ripped it out of her.

At that moment, Mitch called out to him, “Hey, fuckface!” When Monk looked up at him, he shot him in the eye.

It took a moment for him to realize what had happened. He turned his head down to Clementine, the blood running the length of the bolt and dripping on her face before the body’s increasing weight threatened to trap her underneath. She held the body up herself until the injury she had gotten before sapped her of her strength.

Mitch came over and pushed him off. He took the knife and stabbed him again in the head for good measure. Then he helped Clementine up before handing her back her weapon.

“You alright…?” he asked hesitantly though it was painfully obvious that she wasn’t.

“Once we get back to the school, I will be,” she smiled at him. She looked over at AJ and Willy. The two had packed up the medical kit and slung the bows around them, but after AJ tried to walk with one on him, Mitch stopped him and took the bow. “Alright…we’re halfway there.”

They peeked out of the cave at Rodney, who was shooting each walker that hobbled up to him. Getting the pistol was going to be hard; it almost felt like it wasn’t worth it, but with the raiders plotting their attack on the school at any moment, they needed every resource they could get.

“I’ll get the gun,” Clementine said. She held her hip.

“Clem, you can’t,” Mitch argued.

“I’m not sending AJ into that mess, and I know you wouldn’t send Willy. We don’t have a choice. We need that gun.”

Armed with her knife and taking the bow and quiver on Mitch’s back, she braced herself to head into an ocean of death. As she walked out into the swarm of walkers, she kept in mind that Rodney was going to try and kill her. He was frantic, trapped, fighting to survive just like she was—just like they were. Still, where the living fought was also survival, and Clementine was going to have to kill Rodney. It was to save herself and her people. She had to get the gun.

“Willy, give me that bow,” Mitch said. His back hurt, but he straightened himself into position to shoot. “I’m going to at least try to give some support.”

“What should we do?” Willy asked.

“Keep an eye on the ground. Both of you. If those walkers start coming this way, you have to take them out.” He glanced down at Willy and AJ. “You two learned from the best; you got this.”

He took aim and shot the walkers down one by one as Clementine cut a path to Rodney on her own. Eyes up and ahead, she knifed whichever ones came too close and shot the ones surrounding the desperate raving man. She realized that the walkers behind her was growing quieter and quieter. Some were falling thanks to Mitch’s sharpshooting while others were trying to attack her friends at the cave. She saw Willy and AJ fighting them off, and though she worried for them, she was proud that they were still doing fine on their own.

By the time she walked up to Rodney, he was out of bullets and out of time. His hand had turned purple trapped in the snare, and he didn’t have a knife to cut himself out. He wasn’t going to waste bullets on his wrist. But when he saw that she had Monk’s knife, he knew the worst had befallen his own.

“You…you killed Monk, didn’t you,” he almost cried.

“We did,” Clementine said, the walkers slowly encroaching on them.

“And Sheryl?”

“Yes, her too.”

Rodney sobbed. “We…we was family, you know? Up from Kentucky, taking a trip up north when all this shit started. Monk was my cousin. Sheryl my darling wife. We never liked it, but we had to eat anything we could find. Roadkill, live animals…when we realized that human meat could feed us and we had more of it, that’s when we started. Wasn’t ever fun watching people die. Sheryl…she was going to take good care of you kids until it was time because she always wanted kids…but she’s gone now.”

Clementine didn’t know whether or not to feel sorry for him. But he had done the unthinkable. He had attacked children. He and Sheryl had captured AJ and Willy—Mitch’s and her children—to eat. No one liked killing. It wasn’t something that people were supposed to like. Rodney said they didn’t like killing. But they had to. It was eat or be eaten, survive or die, kill or be killed.

“Your family…wanted to eat my family…” Clementine began. “I understand that everyone is hurting and desperate, but that doesn’t make things okay! You can’t say that you never liked it then turn around and capture four kids! No one’s life means more than another, but I made a promise. I’m living for everyone that I’ve lost, and I’m making damn sure that my family lives to see better days.” She just looked down at Rodney sniveling at her feet with a dying hand and an empty gun.

“Sweetheart, dying is a mercy. Letting others kill you so that they can eat…that’s good karma! With your sacrifice, people can thrive!”

“And if I want to thrive? You’re not the first one to tell me this. My best friend and I were captured by cannibals before. They said the same thing, but it doesn’t matter. People like you…it’s not as easy as you think. Nobody wants to die, much less get eaten.”

Rodney looked up at her. “So what are you going to do?” he asked. “Are you going to kill me and spare me then? Even if I don’t want to die? Or are you going to just leave me here to become food for the dead? Times like these, choices don’t make a difference.”

Clementine had accepted long ago that she had to make hard decisions. Even if she had vowed to protect AJ no matter the cost, she couldn’t be angry at this man. She looked at her knife. The truth was no one wanted to become one of them. No one wanted to become a monster, but in the end, if no one actively stopped them from turning, it was inevitable.

“What do you want, Rodney? Sheryl and Monk are dead, and at least one of them won’t turn.”

“You gotta be shittin’ me…please, kill me here. Let me be with my family. You got yours back.”

The walkers were still coming, but AJ, Willy, and Mitch had thinned the herd drastically enough to join Clementine in the field on the edge of the woods. And just as they reached her, she plunged the knife into Rodney’s bald spot in the middle of his wavy black hair. The man died instantly, and she retrieved the gun from his grasp.

“We have to go,” Mitch urged. He saw how troubled Clementine looked. He’d give her a break once they got away from the walkers. Taking her hand and Willy’s, and AJ grabbing Clementine’s, they all ran back into the woods. The walkers didn’t follow. They were too busy feasting on Rodney’s corpse and swarming the cave where Monk had died. But it didn’t matter how far they got because Mitch’s wound and Clementine’s wound brought them to their knees.

“Clem!” AJ cried out.

“Mitch!” Willy panicked.

“You two…have to stay quiet…” Clementine told them. She placed a hand on Mitch’s face; he was on fire. “Fuck…” She shook him. “Mitch, are you still with us?”

“Yeah…” Mitch slurred. “I’m just…so tired…”

“That infection is getting worse.”

“What do we do?” AJ asked. He and Willy were waiting for orders.

“We need to at least get to the river…” Clementine determined. “If we can get there, we can wash the wounds out. We’ll probably pollute the water, but…if we don’t do something about Mitch, he’s not going to last very long.”

Clementine, with great difficulty, forced herself up to a sitting position. She leveraged herself and picked Mitch up. Leaning him against her, and with Willy’s support, they continued on their way to the river. AJ kept an eye behind them while Willy kept an eye on Mitch. Clementine surveyed the road ahead, her knife in her hand just in case.

The way back took them much longer than it had taken Rosie to guide them to the cave, and they reached their destination at dawn. They were all at the end of their ropes, but Clementine was just glad to have running water. They helped Mitch to the edge of the riverbank.

“There they are!” Ruby’s voice came followed by a bout of barking. Violet was behind her. “Don’t put him in the water! Don’t move at all!”

Clementine and Willy pulled Mitch back as the girls and Rosie scrambled over. Ruby asked what happened then decided that the story would be a later thing. Mitch’s pallor unnerved her, and she noticed that Clementine looked unwell herself. Willy and AJ followed behind Violet and Ruby as they carried them back to the school. And once they were inside the main building and shacked up in Clementine’s room—since her room had bunk beds which would allow AJ and Willy to stay close to them—Ruby got to work tending to them.

“Christ, what the hell happened to you, Mitch? How did this get so bad?” Ruby sighed.

“It’s a long story,” Mitch mumbled. “Wouldn’t want to bore you with the details.”

“Now is not the time to act like a smartass.”

“We can tell you over dinner,” Clementine said from her bed.

“And Clem, you’re just as bad!”

“Comes with her being a badass,” Mitch said, this time sleepily. “Anyway, as long as I don’t die, I’m going to sleep.”

“You’re staying awake,” Ruby scolded. “If you fall asleep, how will I know what hurts and doesn’t hurt? Ugh, at least you all brought back a medical kit, so we’ve got more medicine. Probably going to have to use half of it on just you.” She dabbed his bullet wound. “I don’t understand how you _didn’t_ die—not even septic.”

“Hmph, maybe Willy punching me helped out.” He looked over at Clementine. “How are you feeling?” he asked somewhat bashfully.

Clementine smiled. “I’ll be alright. I’ve had worse injuries,” she replied coyly. Her heart had been broken so many times as she had witnessed so many people she cared about die. She wanted to do whatever she could to protect the kids that were abandoned at Ericson. She wanted to protect AJ. And settling with her feelings, recognizing them for what they were, she wanted to protect him as well. Resting across the room with Mitch next to her, no matter how much trouble she had brought them, she felt at home.

“Clem? You awake?” Mitch asked her.

“I’m…just going to rest my eyes…for a bit…” Clementine yawned.

“Oh, so she gets to sleep?”

“For now,” Ruby happily answered. “This infection’s a whopper, so you better stay awake.”

“Fuck, Rubes. Clem, wake up. You’re more fun to talk to,” Mitch whined like a child. “Clem…”

Ruby stifled her giggles as she cleaned the wound and stitched him up. She left him to work on Clementine, and he just watched her sleep. Watching her sleep…made him doze off…maybe later…they could tell what happened together.

**Author's Note:**

> So while writing, I had to research a few survival things, and did you know washing wounds in rivers is still bad? It's not as bad as say...diving into stagnant waters like in lakes, but running water in rivers still carry bacteria. Animals traps are horrible devices (especially when you see just what they're capable of), and...yeah that's that. I really liked writing this one!


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